This guest post is provided by Robert Miller, CEO of LYRASIS.
Hello, My name is Robert Miller, the new CEO of LYRASIS. I am looking forward to the Digital Library Federation Forum. It is exciting to be a part of a forum and furthermore a community who holds the same interests as so many of us—digitization, collaboration and access to collections. This forum is an opportunity to network and hear first-hand the best practices of digitization and what one needs to know at any time during the process. And an international one at that!
By attending this conference, I hope to meet a lot of LYRASIS members, partners and future members and partners who are all focused on the same thing—making our unique collections accessible and sustainable for future generations. Here at LYRASIS, we are strongly focused on one thing: our mission which is to help archives, libraries and museums meet their mission. We are not only the organizational home for ArchivesSpace and CollectionSpace but also are a part of their development so that we offer these open source solutions ArchivesSpace, CollectionSpace and Islandora Hosting Services to those who need them. We offer consulting and training opportunities on digitization, digital preservation and many more topics. We offer discounts on conference registrations, classes, and have one of the strongest licensing programs in the world which provides buying power and large discounts on eResources.
But there is more we can do. In order to do more, we, LYRASIS, a non-profit membership organization, has to be in where our communities and thought leaders are in order to hear the needs of the organizations and help however we can to meet the needs of the communities. What is needed? Funding, collaborative exploration and solutions, support, consulting and sustainable models to ensure organizations and collections are here now and preserved for future generations. We know a bit of what we need at the moment, but what are the needs tomorrow? Do we know? Who else can help? Who else can we partner with who have the same vision as we do? Together at the forum we can have open discussions, share insights and march forward on solutions!
